Dartmouth Announces Test Scores Required Starting Next Year

[Anonymous]

From The NY Times:

‘Convinced by the data’
Dartmouth College announced this morning that it would again require applicants to submit standardized test scores, starting next year. It’s a significant development because other selective colleges are now deciding whether to do so. In today’s newsletter, I’ll tell you the story behind Dartmouth’s decision.

[ Edited by Admin to comply with copyright laws. ]

[Anonymous]

oh wow. Good for them.
I wonder what this will do for admissions number for them if they're the only ones in the Ivy league (or top 20) or whatever that does this?

[Anonymous]

Respect.
More and more selective schools will join.

[Anonymous]

They don’t seem to care, they are so flooded with applications they don’t seem to think it will have a big effect on their rate.

[Anonymous]

they had telegraphed that they'd be test preferred this year, which I assumed would mean test required in a year or two. so I'm surprised to see this jump, but delighted.

it's stressful to know if you should submit or not.

and there's so much bad information out there - including by the A2C mods - for poorer kids. this articles makes that pretty clear.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a good development. A move away from some of the randomness that’s been injected into the college application process is a good thing, especially since this shows it will actually help lower income kids.

[Anonymous]

Way to go Dartmouth! Hopefully the other colleges follow. TO is unsustainable and leads to what we are experiencing now in college admissions, which is a total shitshow.

[Anonymous]

It would make the crazy college process calm down if schools went back to the requirement.

[Anonymous]

Great! I hope they heavily consider them this year too!

[Anonymous]

Good. There may not be much difference between at 1500 and a 1600, but a 1200 does speak to the ability of a kid with a great GPA to succeed in a competitive college environment

[Anonymous]

Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

[Anonymous]

Finally. Hope many others follow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oh wow. Good for them.
I wonder what this will do for admissions number for them if they're the only ones in the Ivy league (or top 20) or whatever that does this?

If MIT is a reference point, applications will likely drop by 25%+. Still means like 23,000 for 1200 slots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

Omg. Yes!!

[Anonymous]

Great.

People seem to have forgotten why the SAT was created in the first place. It was to demonstrate that non-WASPs had what it takes to thrive at elite universities. There weren't a lot of underprivileged URMs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1953. The SAT was a big reason why that changed. And as the article noted, test optional has benefitted the wealthy and the privileged and harmed smart students from lower and middle class backgrounds.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for test optional policies and sanity returns to the college application process.